Sonder
by jiemae
Summary: "I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here." [Kakashi x OC; Co-Written by Enbi & Jiemae]
1. One

Her name is—not important. But for the sake of appearances, clients call her Nana. Short for Nanashi, she likes to think. _Nameless. No one. Nothing._ The thought calms her. Nana is nothing, nothing at all.

Another word for this is: whore.

"Do you ever want to get away?" he asks her once, idly, but the question sticks with her.

"All the time," she says. It's a rare moment, one where she actually shares what's on her mind.

She thinks about it a lot.

…

…

…

When she sees him, she can't help but think of him at first, _what an awkward guy._

He's young. Tall, too, with gangly limbs that should move awkwardly but instead have a lithe grace to them that is impossible not to notice.

Her second thought of him comes with this observation. It's merely one word: _shinobi._

The awkwardness doesn't come from the way he moves, or the way he appears to be talking to his friend, another young man with the beginnings of a beard growing on him. The way he does these things is precise, well-trained, so firmly _shinobi_ that for a moment she doubts herself, doubts the impression she got from him. It's strange, her instincts are among the best and have served her well in her line of work but for a second the world shifts slightly off its axis and she _wonders_.

Then, he stills. He knows her eyes are on him. And as he stills the world rights itself again, because he _is_ —awkward, that is. The way he holds himself, the way his dark clothing seems to blot out the light, the way his hair spikes up in disarray, the way his eye is wide and dark as he meets her gaze head-on.

She doesn't look away. There's no use playing coy, they both know what they are, and recognize the truth of each other. She flicks open her fan and bats her lashes at him. It might not be ninja hand signs, but it's still a form of communication that he can recognize from across the room, just as good as if she shouted at him and much more seductive.

 _You coming?_

She turns around and makes as if she's going back to her room. But before she takes a step, she glances over her shoulder at him, and feels him trace the curve of her cheek with his eye.

She smiles, and begins to walk, and her next thought of him is self explanatory. It is: _customer._

…

…

…

He's a virgin.

It surprises her a bit, she can tell in the way his mouth slants over hers. But shinobi are strange, distant people, and he's her first one of his kind, so perhaps she shouldn't have had expectations in the first place.

When she tells him this, his reaction is… kind of hilarious.

"What," he chokes out.

"You're my first," she says slowly, and her amusement grows stronger.

"I… I thought you were—"

"A whore?" She throws her head back and laughs honestly, something she hasn't done in a long time. "You didn't let me finish. You're my first _shinobi._ "

"Oh."

She smiles at this, enjoying the soft surprise in his eyes and the distinctive look of discomfort in his shoulders. She thinks he might not like her awareness of his occupation but in the end, it matters little.

"Then I don't exactly need what you're offering anymore," he tells her after silence fills the room.

"Ah?" she breathes out, lifting a brow as she brushes her closed fan across her cheek, still clasped in her hand.

"What I mean is that, I have questions. You already know what I am, so I don't need to..." he trails off before meeting her gaze full on, "touch you."

Nana can't help but laugh at this.

"You really are a first for me, then," she tells him, not sure whether she should feel insulted or not. Either way, she's curious.

Shinobi really are a different sort of people, aren't they?

He crosses his arms over his stomach, a clear sign of insecurities—and she jumps on this. Her skill has always been reading people, especially men. Her _talent_ , on the other hand, is knowing just exactly how to get into a person's heart (or rather, into the underneath of their clothes). Stripping away layers of cloth and social niceties and leaving only desire and warmth.

She reaches over to him, fingers coming to rest on his covered arm. That was going to change very soon, if only to tease him.

"I..." he trails off, tensing as soon as she makes contact, audibly swallowing. "I just need to know how it all happens."

"I see," she murmurs softly, letting her fingertips trail over to the edges of his sleeve, stroking the skin of his wrist and feeling the pulse flutter there. _Shinobi,_ she thinks, is not mutually exclusive with _human._ "Shouldn't that be quite obvious, though?"

"Are you going to explain to me or not? I can always find someone else," he tells her, with the sort of indignant tone that tells her he is used to being respected and answered to.

"Tell me, Shinobi-san, how best do you learn?"

He goes silent.

"Most of us," she whispers to him, leaning in close to bring her hand up to palm his cloth-covered chin, "learn by action."

"I very much like to read," he responds. It's automatic. All of his attention is trained on her. There's a certain kind of power she has over her customers. A part of her revels in it, this aspect of her job.

"Do you?" she splays out her fingers on his cheek, moving closer. "I like to read as well, though I am illiterate by your standards."

"What do you mean?" His tone has a touch of wonder to it and she knows it's not on purpose. She moves closer.

"I read _people_ ," she answers. "No matter who it is, I always know what's on someone's mind."

"Then what's on mine?"

She takes the chance to tiptoe and lean even closer in, slipping her hands up to curl her fingers in his surprisingly soft mane of hair.

"I am," she tells him, "me, with my clothes stripped and left discarded. My skin, touching against yours, my warmth joining yours and the sound of my voice..." she trails off before softly whimpering, reaching with her other hand to pull at the waistband of his pants, "a sound that resonates through you...something you want to make louder and louder...until I'm _screaming_."

His eyes flick down to the hand at his waist, and back up to her. "Huh?"

A smile pulls at her lips. "I said," and she tugs him towards her and he helplessly draws closer, and she can feel him pressed up against her, "you want to make me _scream._ "

For a moment, she stands like that, her chest up against him, playing with the waistband of his pants. Then she lets go, and takes a step away.

His previously unfocused gaze sharpens, and he appears to re-evaluate her.

"Teach me," he says. It isn't a request.

She decides to tease him some more, and spins on her heel, facing away from him. "So demanding," she brings a finger to her lips as if in thought.

He steps toward her of his own volition this time, and doesn't apologize. "Tell me what else is on my mind," he urges her. "I'll pay extra."

 _Since he asks so nicely…_

"It'll take awhile," she says, and she turns back to face him again. He takes the opportunity to push her onto the bed and climb over her, determined now. "You certainly have a lot to learn."

"I've been told that I'm a prodigy."

"We seem to have quite a few things in common then," she informs him with a grin, "cause I've been told I have great skill."

"I've noticed."

"Oh?" she surges forward, hand on his shoulder before pushing and sliding onto his lap as easy as if she were breathing. She smiles down at him, entirely amused. "You haven't even encountered what I'm most excellent at."

He sounds almost a bit breathless as he asks, "So what would that be?"

With a soft chuckle, she spreads her hands over his shoulders before squeezing with her thighs. It was with instinct that she let herself move, closely rubbing herself against him with her eyes fluttering shut.

She feels him begin to harden and for this, she moans for his reward.

Slipping her hands down his chest, it's when she trails the tip of her fingers to a sliver of bared flesh that she pulls his shirt up. Her hands are warm as she touches his, feeling the lithe muscle beneath her and noticing what she had expected in him.

He feels firm, especially fit, with a sort of lean power packed into the muscles that tense under her touch. She wants him now. What was meant to be just a job, what was just another source of income, is now an indulgence, something to savor.

She isn't faking it when she whimpers, yelping as she's surprised by his sudden hands on her hips.

Part of her wants to let him do it, to let him completely turn the tables and just _take_ her… but another part, the more prevalent voice in her head, is greatly enjoying his restricted position beneath her.

"Hands off," she tells him.

He raises his only visible eyebrow. "Isn't this a hands-on exercise?"

"No," she says, "this is a demonstration..."

He sucks in a breath, his muscles tensing as she increases the pressure on his lap. Her hips are moving, rolling and she's feeling every inch of him rise to greet her warmth. Her palms, previously so cold, catch the heat and it scorches her. Warmth envelopes her body, as if the flames tongues are licking every inch. It feels good.

(It doesn't always feel good.)

She looks down at him and catches his expression— _ecstasy._

It's over too soon and he's embarrassed. She doesn't think lowly of him.

"Please come again," she says to him instead.

...

...

…

E/N: This story has been in progress since the start of the year in January. Finally, after months of not realizing we could have, we're here to post the first chapter. In case you haven't realized already, this is a co-written story between two Kakashi obsessed, smut-on-the-brain weeb writers who decided to ruin some people's lives—you'll be waiting for a while with updates for this one.

 _Jiemae: Is this good or do you got something to add?_

 **enbi: hi im enbi aka monstercockenbi aka hoodratenbi aka thelastuchihaenbi aka weedmanenbi aka macdaddyenbi aka edgelordenbi aka DEATH DESTROYER OF WORLDS (also join jiemae's discord server, link on her profile)**

 _Jie: this is normal for her, I promise_

 **enbi: literally nana is a prostitute because we were originally like fuck character development, let's jump straight to the smut, so jot that down,GODBLESS,**

 _Jie: now we're like, let's make them suffer the fate of falling in love and being at odds in the hierarchal society they live in. should be lots of fun. hopefully kakashi cries (looks at enbi)_

 _ **Thanks for reading, betta review and let us know how badly you want the continuation.**_


	2. Two

There was a house with a family in it.

She doesn't remember where the house was, only that it was located on the bank of a river. She doesn't remember which river, doesn't remember where _on_ the river, but she remembers the way the light shone through the trees beside it and the coolness of the water, even on hot days.

There was a house with a mother and a father and two brothers and a girl who had a name, a girl that is not Nana.

Nana was born from sweet burning incense smoke and the curved claw of the brothel owner's nail tracing the dip in her chin. She lives in a beautiful house with perfumed silk sheets and wide windows, and never wrung river water from her wet hair and never looked at sunlight dappled through trees.

There was a girl who had a name, a girl that is not Nana—not anymore.

...

...

...

He visits a few days later.

"I think I need to prepare more," he says—an excuse, she thinks—and Nana smiles, taking his hand into hers. With it, she can feel against her fingertips the beat of his heart and for it, a flash of heat rises to her cheeks.

It's odd for her, but it's there nonetheless: excitement.

She wonders with a barely formed thought, if he has thought about them meeting again like she has. The men she typically works with, the ones she likes, they don't always come back. Perhaps it's due to her bad tendency to crave the unattainable.

A shinobi is as unreachable as one gets for someone like her.

"We all want to be more prepared," she says to him, slipping her fingers from his wrists and to the skin of his forearm. Nana expected the prickle of goosebumps raising under her touch, but what she wasn't expecting was to find his expression, equal parts mysterious and open, to be so—

She lifts herself up onto her tiptoes to get a closer look at his eye and while she's suspended against him, she feels it. A temptation to do much more than look. She loathes his mask for a moment but finds herself almost grateful for it as the seconds pass.

Otherwise she would have kissed him.

Nana shakes her head of the thought before sliding her hands back down to twine their fingers together. In her mind she recalls their last time together and can't help but smile at the thought. Neither of them had taken off any clothing. His departure had been too _fast_ to ask for seconds.

"Shall we get a little risky today?" she asks with a smirk on her face. "Do you want to play a game with me this time?"

His expression tightens but his gaze looks curious as he asks, "What game?"

"Strip poker." She feels like her eyes are shining.

His aren't—he looks like he wants to leave immediately.

At this, she scoffs. What had he come here again for, if not for more? She finds her confusion to be a bit amusing because it upsets her, this small rejection, and it wouldn't normally. Her reactions to him are unprecedented. With other men, it's different; the faster they climax, the faster she gets her pay and can say goodbye.

She doesn't _want_ to say goodbye to him.

Nana knows why that is. He's something new, the only shinobi she has ever met and he is just... He is different from all the others. Perhaps it's because of how inexperienced he is, and the unexpected charm he shows for it. Or maybe it's more due to his hesitancy, the naïve reluctance to share himself.

His hesitance sparks a memory in her, not anything she cares to recall but it's there nonetheless. It reminds herself of the girl she used to be. Part of her feels nostalgic of her own experiences, of the time she'd once been brand new to the world of sex, of intimacy, of the self-discovery and the pains of growing up.

His silence makes things strained and she relents at his quiet refusal.

"Fine. At least take off your pants this time," she says, trying to inject humor into the statement.

He narrows his eye at her and responds, almost playfully. "Not before you do."

Nana isn't even wearing pants but an idea pops up nonetheless.

She can't help but laugh at it before raising a brow at him. "Look away then."

He does, visibly flustered and as she moves around him, she's chuckling. She can't help it, can't hold it in. He doesn't seem to understand but he turns away still, long enough for her to undo her obi and longer still, for her to close the distance between them. Reaching her arms around his waist, she presses her cheek against his back.

"Do you want to touch me?" she whispers, taking one of his hands in hers and slipping her arm in against his waist.

She can't see his expression well but from the breath he sucks in, she doesn't need to.

Nana takes his hand and lifts it to the waistband of her underwear, where he's sure to feel the edges of it. She fixes his fingers so that they hook and very slowly, she makes his hands pull her panties down. His skin runs over hers, soft and like satin and the warmth of his hands nearly make her weak in the knees.

Nearly.

"You can look now," she whispers as she steps out of the underwear that has fallen to her ankles. Her kimono hangs off her, loose around on her shoulders, exposing the planes of her skin; the swell of her breasts, the dip of her navel, the expanse of her stomach. She's a thin, short girl, so different to his taller frame with toned muscle she rarely gets to touch.

Somehow, despite showing herself to so many men before, she finds herself taking a few steps back to alleviate the feel of his gaze. It sticks her heart in her throat, makes her voiceless, and like a pot come to boil, she feels her desire stampede to attention.

"Can I...Can _I_ touch?" he asks, his voice cracking.

Nana nods, unable to speak.

He steps forward, his fingers outstretched and the second he makes contact, Nana gasps. She leans into him, surprised by the heat that spreads through her under the pads of his fingers. She expects him to be more hesitant, sweeter in his touch, but as soon as she meets his gaze, he slips his hands around her waist and pulls her to him. Her thighs touch the fabric of his pants, making her shiver and swallow a soft moan.

The shinobi, he's bold. Much more than she thought a virgin capable of.

His fingers slide down to the curve of her waist, slip over her hip bone and he cups her. With a sound of surprise, Nana rubs against him in approval of this exploration of his.

"Soft," he murmurs, slipping a finger in the folds of her sex. He flicks it against her and maddened by teasing nature of it, Nana brings her hand to the hem of his shirt, searching for a point of access to his pants. She can't find it at first, her eyes rolling to a close as she arches her back and presses in closer to him. This is unpracticed territory for her.

Not many men touch her in such a place; they're after the self-gratification they paid for.

"I didn't think it'd feel this way," he whispers, his breath tickling the hairs at her neck and ear, so very quiet that she thinks perhaps she wasn't meant to hear. Thrills run through her, persisting the growth of heat in her abdomen. Nana shudders against him.

Hot, hot, it's too _hot_. She has to be sweating just from standing so close.

Nana recalls her sidetracked pursuit, and reaches her hands into his pants before she can be deterred. She gasps at the feel of him as she palms him, how thick and hard he's become for her. Nana rubs her fingers at the head, and loves the grunt he huffs out, the surprise in how he jerks against her.

"Pants off," she orders, and assists him as he sheds them, with the rest of his clothes soon to follow in the seconds it takes to scramble towards the bed.

Before it can be done with ceremony, his mask comes down and his lips crash down on hers, firm at first before softening as she instinctively seeks to teach him. She sighs, an admittance to the flick of his tongue against hers and Nana does what she so rarely does on a job; she loses herself.

In the touch, in the warmth, in the caresses and connection. Nana decides, if possible, she could spend the rest of her day just _kissing_ him. Sighing against him, the shinobi—hers, in their time together—takes his mouth and brings it to her chin, then down to her throat, trailing soft kisses down the length of her until his lips brush over the tip of a breast.

Nana can't help herself as she moans, somewhat embarrassed by the uncontrolled sound.

His hand finds her sex again, and his fingers explore her, curious in nature even at it makes her ache with unfulfilled desire. She lets him discover this piece of her, patient even as her hips buck against him. Nana wishes to take his hand and _show_ him how she needs to be touched, but the larger part of her loves the slow torture.

The longer it takes, the longer she can keep him, and Nana has so rarely enjoyed the journey of it.

"Can I taste you?" he asks, shocking her eyes open.

"I—what?"

She can't see his lower face but she can feel the shape of his smile against her skin.

"It'll feel good for you," he states, his warm breath cascading over her, sending chills through her. It leaves her helpless to speak, with her only form of communication the way she spreads her legs further and tips her hips up, a quiet demand.

His lips find her then, and the connection between her mind and body dissipates—she's nerve endings, uncontrolled moans and _ache_. He has her, his fingers curling over the skin of her thighs, keeping her as still as she can be. It's a practice in futility, the attempts toward stillness. A torture of a different kind.

He continues to lap at her, with that same exploratory instinct of his, and he _learns_. Listens to reactions and adjusts to it, narrows in on the spots she finds most sensitive, and with what can only be called devotion, he _drinks_ her.

Nana rakes her fingers through his hair, and she doesn't realize how hard she's holding on until her hand comes away with silver strands. Her brain is too numb to feel guilt and with gasping moans, helpless mewls, Nana lets herself go to the pleasure he's offering.

She comes, _explodes_ , consumed by the release of the built up heat from his lapping tongue. Her chest rises and falls, trying and failing to catch her breath as she looks down and searches for his gaze. She realizes mutedly that she didn't have a name to call out.

"I don't know your name," Nana says, dismayed.

The shinobi says nothing back, only kisses her inner thigh, an extension of that devotion he'd gifted her. Nana can't remember the last time she'd had such an experience and in a way, it leaves her feeling new and raw to it.

"Are you sure you're a virgin?" she asks, dazed.

He chuckles against her skin, his face still unseen and she wonders at the mystery of it. How he could touch her with such confidence, to be so inexperienced all the while. An enigma, a puzzle she's certain she'd never be allowed to solve.

Nana tries not to think it but already she _knows_. This shinobi, who can't even part with his name for her, could never chose her to unravel him. Not in the way he's done to her.

Amused by her bizarre thoughts and their intrusive nature, Nana shakes them off with a smile. She reaches for him and is amazed by the way his actions mirror her own. With her beneath him, her shinobi positions himself over her, her legs wrapping around his lower back and pulling him in, guiding him.

Nana has dropped her expectations of him—he meets them and disregards them in equal parts—but she keeps the feeling of anticipation for him close to her chest. She meets his gaze and drops her eyes to his fully exposed mouth. Nana doesn't know if it's a sign of something important, and if she has to think anything of it, it must mean he's comfortable with her.

The thought makes her smile as he pushes in, slow in the first thrust. Then, it's as if instinct takes over them both, and he loses any reason to go slow.

Nana loses herself, in the feeling, in him, and somehow she can't bring herself to mind.

…

…

…

Shinobi stamina is something else, but after everything, he looks exhausted. Boneless, sated, basking. He breathes evenly, but she can see the bags under his eyes.

Nana bites her lip.

"Would you like to stay?" she asks his still form, shamelessly draped across him. With anyone else, she'd expect unconsciousness, but she knows that he is different.

It takes him five seconds and an eternity to answer.

Slowly, carefully, he lifts an arm from his side and wraps it around her.

Nana smiles into his skin.

And he stays.


	3. Three

Nana so rarely aches for anyone.

In the past, she was accustomed to the emotion, the longing to connect with others, mostly people that abandoned her. She missed her mother, her siblings, the vestiges of the past she suffers to remember more of. But that was a feeling she grew out of, something that happens naturally when the cracks of assumed bonds become exposed.

He won't come back, she realizes bitterly. It'll be because she misses him—like all the people that never came back. She has no idea why she feels this way for a nameless shinobi. It was just sex, like it is for every other man she accepts.

Yet, she's been faking it in bed, and she knows it's because that damn man ruined her for anyone else.

It was only one night.

Nana will spend the rest of her life comparing everyone else to him. For just one night.

Perhaps it'll be to the point that she'll forget why. Forget how good he made her feel for a time.

Oh, she hates him—for not coming back. She hates herself for wanting him to, for wanting more from him when he's already given more than he had to.

It's impossible that a man like him should come back to a girl like her. A whore, servicing men to eat, untalented in all other aspects of life, useless for any other place but the bed. She wishes she never met him but is still glad for it, all at once. A maddening cycle of longing and gratitude.

In the end, she finds herself amused by his power over her. How utterly bizarre for her, to become so attached. She was supposed to be done with all of that, but apparently, she isn't.

...

...

...

It's weeks—months—later, when he finally returns, surprising her into shocked tears that she covers up by laughing too hard. And she accepts, again, the role she's been given in life.

"Welcome back to the whorehouse," she says to her shinobi, still baffled and wiping stray tears away. "Been away too long, have you?"

She can't see most of his face, but his one eye looks amused, crinkled the way it is.

"You don't know if I've been to other whorehouses," he points out.

"Well, then, if you've had your pick of the girls and still came back to me, then I'd have reason to be very pleased with myself, won't I?" Nana grins and steps forward, hand reaching towards his hips. She pulls him toward her and sees that same hesitation that she saw last time.

No, he hasn't been to another brothel. If he had, that insecurity in him would've surely dissipated by now. (Or, maybe, it's just that she does a nameless something to him that makes him nervous.)

"Do you want to play a game?" Nana asks, hoping he'll say no. With his return, she's impatient to get to the real pleasure but she doesn't know if he's as ready as she is.

His answer to her question, both silent and voiced, is to yank her obi off without ceremony, slide the collar of her kimono down her shoulders, and lift her by the naked thighs with a firm grip, pressing their sexes together. It's done too quickly for her to say a word—she can only gaze at him in wordless awe.

Shinobi really are a breed apart.

"What do _you_ want to do?" he asks, his nails digging into her skin in a way that makes her shiver and her breath hitch.

Oh, she knows what she wants to do, what she wants him to do to her.

With a smile, she leans in to whisper in his ear, " _Fuck me._ "

And her pleas are finally answered.

...

...

...

She finds that they can carry a conversation even after the sex. It's not a common thing to be able to speak with a client and have an interest in what he has to say. Not common at all to feel as if she's provided an insight that he finds intriguing as well.

She'd almost say they were becoming friends, aided by his ridiculous sense of humor, wicked and charming—and bizarre—as it is. Her shinobi without a name is a rare man indeed, and she knows this from the smiles as he teases and guides their conversations. A sharp mind like his can be carefully aware of where something can lead to and know well enough how to stray away without the mood of conversation being affected.

Nana knows he's leading them, refusing to get too personal, but she doesn't mind—she has no interest. Every person has a right to a secret or two, she thinks, though she holds none.

"Lover," Nana says, struck by a thought and having no other word to address him.

"Hmm?" He plays with a lock of her dark hair, rubbing it between his fingers before nuzzling his chin into the crook of hers.

 _This man_ , she thinks, _is like a child in small ways._

Distracted, she has to think of her question again—and then blurts it, "What is a school like?"

"School?" he echoes, pulling back and looking perplexed.

Nana nods. "I've had a curiosity, but no one I know has ever gone." _Or they'd laugh at me for asking._

"Well, how to describe it... I never attended for long, so I can't say much. It was a noisy place, with lots of kids who stared, and lots of teachers who stared, and lots of boring lectures. I'd say more, but after those few impressions, it was decided I didn't have to attend anymore."

She blinks at him owlishly, not understanding. "How did you become a shinobi then, if you had to stop going?"

He hesitates, studying her face before very softly saying, "Well, after that, I had an apprenticeship with their youngest jounin. It wasn't that much longer that I became a chuunin, and then a jounin."

"So," she summarizes, catching on with a smile twisting her lips, "you're a genius."

He matches her smile with one of his own, except his is much more nonchalant. "I've been called that."

"Me too," she admits, then laughs at his questioning look before licking her lips. "I can tell you why, or I can show you. Choose _carefully_."

His brows shoot up. "Yeah? You know me, Nana, I learn best with live... demonstrations."

"Well then, sir, you'd better lean back, like this," she says, placing her hands against his bared shoulders, feeling the warm skin at her palms and shivering—how was it that, just _touching_ him, made her feel _alive_?—before sliding down the bed.

She starts at the toes of his right foot, and goes from there, massaging and kneading her knuckles into his sole. He laughs, wiggles his toes, and looks at her, a bit in disbelief.

"Didn't you know? We can feel a lot _here_ ," she says, digging in and turning circles into the muscle with her thumbs—he _groans_ , and with wide eyes, looks surprised at himself.

"Where did you learn _that_?" he asks and she grins.

"All sorts come in here, not just shinobi, and at times," she laughs, "there are such men who get great pleasure from a foot massage and looks to me that—you—are—one," she declares, watching his back arch and hearing his breath fall from his mouth in pants. He still has that disbelieving look on his face.

She snickers lightly. "You must work too hard, my shinobi," she informs him, and adds with a loving swirl of her thumbs, "you're so _stiff_!"

He pulls his head back in a laugh, his cheeks filled with heat. "I can think of other places that are much stiffer, Nana."

"So can I," she agrees, and slips her hand around his ankle, moving the massage upward, slowly, slowly till her hands are on his calve. She leans forward, his foot rested against her stomach, and places a kiss on his thigh, reveling in his answering groan. Heat licks her middle—could any other person be as much fun to tease?

She's known hundreds of men, and her answer is no.

Nana licks, nips, and kisses his skin, working her hands into the hard muscle of his calve, easing the tension out of him as she climbs higher and higher. She loves this, loves this so much she can't seem to find the will to stop, and she's _burning_. Nana moans and shudders, and her eyes go wide, feeling the hints of an orgasm work through her. She can't believe it.

He's not even touching her.

Her mouth goes dry as her hot breath comes out in pants, misting over his stomach as her hands reach for his sex. She could use her mouth, but that would be too easy. Instead, she grips him, surprised by the girth and the solid feel of him.

Perhaps, just a little bit, she could kiss him there.

"Nana," he calls, a hint of a growl there that sends a tremor through her. " _Hurry_."

She is nothing, if not obedient.

Nana continues to stroke the length of him, inquiringly, almost maddeningly slow, as she creates a mental map of him. She's on a mission to engrave every single detail of him onto the back of her eyelids.

His hands are in her hair, tugging at her sweetly, the slight pain making her chest constrict.

Pre-cum buds at his tip, and he's still wet from their last round, making him slick to the touch. Nana moans again, just from the thought, the _knowing_ that he had been inside her not too long ago. Oh, she wants him again—she's more than ready for it, if the ache and the wetness between her thighs is anything to go off of.

She could lick him, could kiss him, could tease him with her fingers. She could do a great number of things to him, but Nana thinks, through the haze of pleasure, that she wants to ride him.

" _Nana_ ," he groans, and repeats it, " _Nana_." It becomes a prayer when he says it again, " _Nana!_ " His teeth are grit, and the sound of her name coming from him is a guttural one. She's never heard anyone say it quite like that, and the thrill it sends through her has her chest tightening until she isn't sure she's breathing anymore.

"Shinobi," she says, hating the fact she has nothing else to call him. " _My_ shinobi."

Nana lifts herself up onto her knees, her toes curling as she slides forward and positions herself over his hips, reaching for his sex to guide her. His hands, gravitating towards her hips, curl until his nails are digging into her skin. Her lashes flutter close, and she sighs at the sensation, teasing him at her entrance.

He has no more patience for her games—as soon as she has him angled, he pulls her down, his shaft sinking into her with a burn that is as agonizingly slow as it is pleasurable. He holds her still as she struggles to move, to ride him as she so desperately wants to. Her moan catches itself and turns into something of a hiccup and her cheeks fill with heat.

Cupping her hips so hard, she knows there'll be bruises in the morning—as well as a slew of concerned questions she'll have to answer—her shinobi pumps himself in and out of her. It's brutal. She can't breathe. Her hands find his chest, her thumbs stroking a particularly raised scar.

In her ears, all she can hear is the clap of their joining, her ragged pants, and grunts that escape his gritted teeth. Oh, _gods above_ , how will she survive this? Her vision begins to fade and she closes her eyes, fearing that, before they've even finished, she'll pass out.

She's never fainted during sex before, but then, he's brought her so many other firsts.

Nana sways forward, going boneless, her face coming to rest of his chest as he keeps the swift pace. Her breathing is dragged in and out of her lungs, her throat hurts and she's certain that if she speaks, her voice will be hoarse.

Her orgasm comes first as it ripples through her, her legs twitching through the shocks, and her moan gets choked by the saliva in her mouth. Quietly, she shudders and feels herself squeeze as he drags himself out and pushes himself in, building her back up, as if she hadn't just felt the best fucking orgasm she's ever had in her life.

"Please, please, _please_ ," she begs, both wanting this to last forever and for them to finish quickly. She doesn't think her body can keep up, but _fuck_ , it feels great.

"Almost there," he tells her, and she angles herself to kiss the scars on his chest.

It's minutes later that he gives one final jerk, and a flood of wet, sticky heat fills her, inciting another orgasm that spreads throughout her body, making her legs go numb and her middle fill with fire. Her head is lost to the haze as she relaxes on him, feels him go slack beneath her.

"That was," he breathes, but doesn't finish.

She nods, and doesn't understand the tears that sting her eyes. "Incredible," she supplies after a moment, her voice hoarse.

"Look at me," he orders, and when she does, he brings his hand to her chin and leans down. Their lips touch, and the kiss sings through her. It's tender, almost sweet.

When he leaves that night, she lays there, thinking.

This is love, she thinks, and the agony of that thought makes her weep.

...

...

...

E/N: So, as it happens, **Enbi** has left the writing for this story in favor of her own, more demanding projects. She'll still be quality checking, and considering she did so much developmental work with me in the beginning, she'll remain noted as a c0-writer too.

Thank you, everyone, who has read, favorited, followed, and reviewed. We both really appreciate it all—and sorry for the long wait! I can only do so much.

Rejoice, as this next wait shouldn't be too long. I have the rest of this story written to the end. Even though I say that, there's a great deal I still need to add and adjust, so there might be a few weeks in between updates, given that I have a great many other projects I want to be working on too.

(Notably, a Tom Riddle x Ravenclaw!OC that I've been having a blast with, and you should check out if you enjoy high tension slow burns!)

I won't keep you guys waiting too long!


	4. Four

If the world is split into those who use others, and those who give, Nana would be both. She gives her body. She gives pleasure. She gives her ear to listen. She gives up on those who don't care about her anymore. She gives.

And she uses. She uses the men that visit her for their coin. She uses their sentiments of her beauty to invigorate her vanity. She uses their lives to live vicariously through. She's been used by the people who don't care about her anymore.

As both, she doesn't think one is better than the other. She muses, the givers are easier to sympathize with, but she thinks there's something inherently sad about the plight of users. They're so empty, and she knows what it's like to be empty.

People are like jars, she thinks. Everyone starts off empty, but as people grow up, everyones' jar fills up with something different, or not at all. She thinks of the contents of a jar as love. Some people's jars are overflowing. Some people's jars are half-full, half-empty, three-fourths full, and three-fourths empty. Some people barely have a trickle at all, and some people are entirely empty.

She muses that what goes in the jar is love, love collected by the bonds people share with each other. Not by the amount of relationships, but by the meaningfulness of them. Some people start off empty and stay empty. Some people start off full and then lose it all.

Nana used to be like that.

When she closes her eyes to sleep, the window lets in sunlight. It used to be irritating but now it makes her sigh a bit longingly. She wants to go outside, live a different life entirely. In equal parts, it alleviates and exacerbates the longing, when she pretends to be the men who come to visit her. It's opened her to the realization that sometimes it hurts to pretend to be someone else, as if confirming that she's nothing, that she has nothing.

 _For a whore, you're a curious girl_. How many times has she been told that?

Sometimes, she gets overwhelmed with the thought that everyone around her has a life of their own, different from hers.

Nana interacts with a fair amount of people—clients, the other working girls, the brothel owner. It's simple for her to imagine the outside world, to understand what's out there from the gossip that gets around, but Nana doesn't cope well with the thought of what other people are doing out there, beyond the streets she's familiar with.

She doesn't understand this weakness of hers, only that she has it.

When she closes her eyes to sleep and the window is letting in sunlight, it makes Nana sigh longingly for the past. She dreams of the river, of the trees she's climbed, and of children's laughter. Memories.

Mixed with them now are the sensations of a man's hand on her hips, fingertips biting into her skin and the rough heat between her thighs. From scent alone she knows who it is and the longing that hits her when she wakes up makes it hard to breathe.

She prays.

...

...

...

Kakashi has a problem. A sex problem, though it definitely doesn't feel like a 'problem' to him. In some ways, it's a solution to plenty of other issues people report that he has. Like his hesitancy to close physical distance, to undress and reveal his scars, to expose his face. People rarely call him out on it, but he knows they notice.

He notices quite a bit about how people regard him.

Perhaps it's part of what keeps him coming back to her.

More so than anyone else, in a way that Kakashi has never let happen before, she knows him. A fact that both thrills and terrifies him. She understands him. Perhaps not through his personal history—he's been careful not to give his name or the Sharingan that would reveal his reputation—but that's just another benefit.

Kakashi has tried, but never succeeded until now, to find a place where he is not his name, not his unfortunate history, not his completed missions or the countless mistakes that plague him. Instead, he can be...

 _Her shinobi_ , as she has referred to him in gasps that still echo in his daydreams.

He has a secret that no one knows, no one but his father who drove him to don the mask in the first place; he's not good at controlling his expressions. Could never keep his mouth from relaxing in a smile or growing into a frown, a fact that disregarded an iron clad shinobi rule. Do not show emotion.

In the end, he hid them the best he could.

Kakashi isn't sure why he showed her what was underneath his mask, but his small comfort is that she could never know what it means. She will never learn his identity and because of that, he is safe with her.

Safe—for now.

Not a problem then, a _situation._

He's become dependent on—he loathes to admit it—her.

Nana is a whore, readily available for him and the ryo he pays with. He's lost count on how many times he's visited her. To the point that when he comes to the brothel, he doesn't even need to say her name, the owner is already leading him to the backroom where Nana waits, that soft smile finding its way onto her face at the sight of him. He knows it's because of the money, and the pleasure she knows by now that they'll have.

It used to chaff him badly that he had to pay for her. Shame used to plague him. It was a low thing, wasn't it? To pay for sex, to pay for the girl who was paid by others for the same. Was it right of him to do so, to become like every other man she'd met? Kakashi had come to the conclusion that he's a lot of things, and being honorable isn't one of them.

So he continues to visit her. He has no idea when he'll stop—how he'll stop.

She's told him he's the rarest sort of client she loves the most; someone she can climax with.

Kakashi might suspect she said it merely to bolster his ego, but he knows it to be true. Her reactions are too vivid to be faked, an entire body shudder he revels in pulling from her, along with the music of her soft pants. He loves when her beautifully luminescent eyes go wide, filling with tears when she's close to orgasm, her entire face red with a blush and that mouth of hers opening on a gasp, milk white teeth all perfectly aligned—a rarity.

She's quiet in her approval, unlike the screams of whores in other rooms but the softness of her voice suits him fine. After all, he's attuned to his heightened senses and he doesn't need her to scream to hear the insistent, begging undertones of her moans.

God, he loves fucking her.

She loves it too—when he leaves her in bed, often times rushed to get back to his shinobi duty, Nana lays in a weakened heap, cheeks flushed, eyes heavy lidded, and her legs, sheets, and sex a mess of evidence. Usually she shifts onto her side to watch him go, presses her hands between her thighs, and smiles in that way that leads to a tightening in his groin. That's how he knows what she doesn't say.

There is nothing more out of place in the brothel than her smile. It's a sweet, careful, delicate thing. Not kind or pacifying, as if she pities him like everyone else. It's warm as if she is genuinely pleased to see him, the softness mixed with traces of eagerness that he struggles to keep off his face but fails to.

When his mask comes off and she can see it for herself, that smile broadens and he can't, with all honesty, say he regrets showing her.

He can't, with all honesty, say he regrets meeting her.

He can't—and that's the real problem.

...

...

...

Nana laughs with him, mixing her throaty guffaws with his small chuckles, ones that send thrills across her skin. When he's being vulnerable, he's not loud in his approval of things, and his behavior edges toward hesitancy in expressing himself verbally. She finds him odd in this way, as if there are two people in him; the crassly humored and flippant man who can brazenly speak the most absurd sentences, and the quiet, introspective and—

His face is a good indicator of what he's feeling and it's best when he's laughing.

She lives now, for his visits and for the expressions she finds in the planes of his face. Nana's fingers twitch to stretch across his cheeks, his nose, the edge of his jaw and the furrow of his brow but she doesn't. Nana has heard that shinobi are skittish people, and she has not had enough of him. She doesn't want to give him any reason to leave.

Nana prays that he'll never have enough of her either. She is not the sort to pray, and it's bizarre, this desire to ask deities to let her keep him, but it's all she can do. After all, she's just a girl with nothing to offer; she needs all the help she can get.

 _Just a little longer! One more day, I won't ask for anything else but one more day_. But then just a day is never enough and she breaks her promise of asking, as most greedy humans do.

Nana thinks as soon as she wakes up, _let him come back to me_. It's ridiculous. She's being stupid.

She laughs louder at the absurdity of her requests and this dangerous desire. When Nana had been a child warned away from shinobi, she hadn't expected their reputation to be a danger to be so true.

Now, she revels in his attention on her, as quick as it is to leave. She hates when he's gone, laughs at her own strange misery, and feels her heart thud tightly in her chest the second she glimpses his frame in the doorway the next time he appears.

Nana doesn't know if it's a god making him return, but she's too dumbly thankful to care.

Ah, what a silly girl to let these emotions to sink in. What a dumb whore to expect his visits forever. What a painful existence that no one but her would be grateful to have.

He smiles, his eye crinkling, and his lips pull up in the way that reveals his teeth. Nana loves his mouth—and everything else too, just not as much as she loves that mouth of his. It's her secret treasure, the sight of his grins and the too sharp canines that she loves to run her tongue over. The softness of his lips, the way they look swollen and red from her, and how easy they are to nibble and suck.

Heaven.

Nana leans in and presses her lips to his, listening to his breath catch and the kiss quickly deepens. Another special thing about her shinobi; his stamina. Out of the both of them, she's the most likely to wind up too exhausted to leave bed, and when he leaves her for weeks on end, her soreness lingers as a fond memory between her thighs.

He's insatiable, voracious in his thirst for sex. It's something she's both happy about and fearful of. As easy as it was to take his virginity, to find the balance in their 'relationship', it will be just as easy for him to find someone else.

A better girl, perhaps a shinobi who will understand more why he doesn't talk to her about his past. A nice, pretty girl who loves him and who he loves. Someone who isn't a whore with hopes too high, still dreaming of a life beyond the brothel walls.

She is terrified of him but she'll never tell him why.

Instead, Nana continues to give, give, give and let's herself greedily take, take, take.

...

...

...

"Make me feel real," Nana whispers sometimes against the nape of his neck. He thinks she doesn't even realize what she's saying, her expression dazed when he pulls away to gaze at her.

He never knows what to say in response. It's a strange thing to ask for but somehow he understands it. He wonders at her everyday life, what it's like for her to live at the brothel, the type of men she meets and if they treat her well. It makes him ill to contemplate others being with her, and he feels hot scorching jealousy if he thinks that she might even be enjoying it. This response, he doesn't understand.

Kakashi has experience with dirty jobs, understands that she can't help these things.

They can't be faithful to each other. Amidst the natural cherry blossom scent of her skin, the scent of sex, cigarettes, and booze clings to her. He tastes on her those that have come before him, tries not to think about it, and thinks instead, as he suckles at her neck, arms, breasts, back, and thighs, that he never wants to see her with anyone else's mark but his own.

He never does, and he doesn't ask why that is.

 _Make me feel real_.

He wonders at her past.


End file.
